Dawn. Monday. The sky in the west is still dark. In the east, a moonlike sun cowers behind skeins of cloud, turning the Thames molten-silver and the spires of Parliament black as pitch. We blaze over Westminster Bridge on the hover-bike (yeah, that’s right, the hover-bike). The road is deserted, save for a few black cabs (they look like normal black cabs, but disturbingly these hover too, blasting jets of air downward onto the tarmac, sending rainwater spraying).

My mind is torpid. I can’t think straight over the drone of the bike.

I swivel in my seat and see the giant Ferris wheel—the Eye—watching over us and beyond, an unfamiliar skyline. Monolithic towers of steel and glass, each as tall as the Shard, appearing overnight. I scan the cold sky and see no movement. No Reapers.

Malik steers the bike up Parliament Street and we’re immediately engulfed in shadow. The whumping sound of the engine hammers off the buildings and our blurred reflection races us in the windows. We hit Trafalgar Square and veer up a dark road and then duck right into Regent Street St. James’s, which leads us to Piccadilly Circus.

The first image that assails me is a seven-meter-high silverback gorilla downing a Coca-Cola. Just do it, shouts the copy.

Before I get my head around this unholy brand mash-up, we blast right through the gorilla. I flinch and grimace. And, when I turn back, I realise that the billboards of Piccadilly are now three-dimensional holographic projections.

So, there’s that.

We’re blazing up Shaftsbury Avenue now and bank a hard left into Wardour Street. The street names are all the same, but the buildings, the cars, the structure of the place is different. Malik brings the Thunderbird to a thumping stop at a nondescript matte black door. No doorknob. No letterbox.

Fixed over the door, a small gold plaque reads:

MEMBERS ONLY

Malik drops a gear and sends us down a ramp alongside the door. There’s a flash, like a camera going off, and a corrugated metal door winds up and we slip under it and descend into an underground car park. Malik pulls up alongside several other hover-bikes and he cuts the engine. I hear a booming sound.

“Hell’s that?” I ask, voice muffled by my helmet.

“Anchor clamp. Locks us to the ground.”

“Right. Of course.”

Malik pulls off his helmet, swings out of the saddle and his fingers are under my chin before I can say anything. He pulls the helmet from my head.

“C’mon,” he says, tucking it under his arm.

I traipse after him, dazed, the engine’s vibrations lingering in me.